The beginning of January brings a fresh sense of optimism, plenty of revelry, and a respite after the hectic holiday shopping season. But for the retail industry, that respite is short-lived: the start of a new retail year also means another National Retail Foundation (NRF) BIG Show.
Cisco Meraki has long had a presence at NRF, and this year, we’re bringing fun new people, exciting new sessions, and innovative new hardware to the Javits Center. Here’s the who, what, where, when, and why about Meraki at NRF 2019.
Who from Meraki will be at NRF 2019?
Meraki employees from a wide range of departments will be at the show hosting speaking sessions and engaging with people at the booth. Representatives from our product management, marketing, sales, and channel teams will all be there, ready to demo our latest and greatest and answer any questions you may have about Meraki.
What products will Meraki be showcasing?
Retailers love Meraki IT solutions because they’re straightforward to manage and have a wide range of capabilities to engage customers. This year, you’ll receive a firsthand look at the latest products from our core networking stack (wireless, switching, and security) as well as our SM endpoint management tool and MV smart cameras. Don’t miss the new MV12, MV22, and MV72, all of which were introduced in 2018 and are capable of advanced analytics, including motion heat maps and people detection.
Where can I find Meraki?
Meraki will be part of Cisco’s booth (#2254), a roomy 20 x 30-foot space. It’ll be easy to spot Meraki employees: we’ll all be wearing signature green Meraki t-shirts! Three screens in the booth will be dedicated to demos of the Meraki dashboard, and a few iPad Pros will also be strewn around the booth for mobile demos.
When is the Meraki “Big Ideas” speaking session?
You won’t want to leave NRF without having attended our “Big Ideas” session. This year, we’ll feature Marty Dempsey, VP of Global Retail at Estée Lauder Companies, a Meraki customer. In conversation with Imran Idrees, Portfolio Product Marketing Manager for Meraki, Dempsey will discuss how new digital technologies like mobile apps and cloud-based solutions are revolutionizing the traditional brick-and-mortar retail environment. Be sure to attend the session on January 14 at 1:30 PM right on the expo hall floor!
Another “Big Ideas” speaking session we’re proud to be a part of is CDW’s. George Bentinck, the product manager for Meraki MV smart cameras, will discuss how retailers can turn sight into insights and maximize the value of their investments in video security. You can learn more about our smart cameras on Tuesday, January 15 at 10:15 AM.
Why should retailers stop by our partner booths?
The Meraki party doesn’t stop as soon as you step out of Cisco’s booth. For the first time ever, six partner booths will play host to Meraki gear. Visit these featured partners, sprinkled around the show floor, to get a Meraki demo and enter a raffle to win a full stack of Meraki gear!
We can’t wait to see you from January 13-15, 2019. In the meantime, feel free to chat with us in the Meraki Community. See you in New York City!
Retailers, get excited: NRF 2018: Retail’s BIG Show is coming up! In just a few days, the Javits Center in New York City will be abuzz with all things retail. Cisco Meraki will be at NRF to chat about our latest solutions, showcase a few of our customers, and discuss the benefits that cloud-managed IT can bring to retail. We’re really excited to share why cloud management and Meraki are a perfect fit for retail, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve got in store (pun intended).
Which Meraki products will be showcased?
At NRF 2018, we’ll be showcasing the Meraki products that matter most to retailers. That means you’ll get to check out Meraki MR wireless access points and our newest product line, MV security cameras, in the flesh. Of course, come to our booth to watch a live demo of the Meraki dashboard and see how simple it is to manage and configure a full stack of IT infrastructure — including APs, switches, security appliances, cameras, phones, and enterprise mobility management — from a single place.
As a special treat, our team will set up beacons and Meraki APs throughout the expo hall to give attendees a first-hand look at how Meraki Location Analytics works in a retail environment. Come to the booth to check it out!
Where can I find Meraki?
Meraki will be part of Cisco’s booth (#2052), located on Level 3 of the Expo Hall. This large, 30 x 40-foot “toy box” will be an experiential retail environment where you’ll get to see a variety of Cisco technologies at play.
Here’s what the booth will look like — look for the big blue Cisco banner!
Which Meraki customers will I get to hear from?
Many retail companies have already deployed Meraki to great success, which is why we’re excited to feature some of them and have them discuss their Meraki deployments at NRF.
On Tuesday, January 16 from 10:15 AM to 11 AM, attend Meraki’s Exhibitor Big Ideas Session (Expo Hall, Room 4, Level 3). You’ll hear from Grupo Merza, a Mexican food and grocery distributor, about their deployment of 3,000 Meraki MV cameras.
Cisco will also be hosting speaking sessions with Dollar General and Panera Bread, both Meraki customers.
Who from Meraki will be at NRF 2018?
You’ll be able to meet some fantastic Meraki sales and marketing employees at NRF. We’ll have the product marketing leads for MV, MC, and our API solutions, as well as two people from the Meraki solutions architecture team, at the demo booth to chat about why Meraki is ideal for retailers.
With the launch of MV, Meraki has been hitting the road to showcase the security cameras at a new crop of trade shows, including both ISC East and West. Next week, the tour continues to the United Kingdom and Europe at IFSEC, hosted at ExCeL London 20-22 June. MV’s Product Manager George is packed up and ready to go along with our booth:
Come visit booth #F900 to say hi and learn more about our cloud-managed security cameras. We’ll be giving demos on how to use MV and highlighting all the newest features like optimized retention tools and more. Meraki experts will be at the show all three days to answer your questions not just about MV, but our other products as well (wireless, switching, network security, communications, and EMM, oh my!). As usual, we’ll have some Meraki goodies on-hand too. Can’t wait to see you there!
The Meraki team were once again at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Philadelphia. ISTE has been a regular event on the marketing teams calendar of the marketing team’s calendar, with this year being no exception.
A beautiful booth, courtesy of the Meraki design team, formed the centerpiece of our presence at the show, and keeping it gleaming was a high priority. All hands were on deck to polish and scrub the floor each morning, ready for the eager crowds.
One of the great things about the Meraki cloud is the simplicity with which IT administrators can manage multiple platforms. From MDM to WLAN, LAN, and WAN, the Meraki full stack of products provides unique benefits such as those seen with Systems Manager Sentry. To celebrate this, attendees to the Meraki booth could receive a custom #fullstack t-shirt by participating in a one-on-one demo of the products.
One of the customers to visit the booth was the team from the Upper Township School District in New Jersey. It was great to hear about their experiences operating a Meraki network, and their continued expansion of their deployment. Glen Stewart, Director of IT, spared a few minutes to talk about why the district chose Meraki, how they evaluated different vendors, and the testing of high density WiFi in classrooms.
If you missed the Meraki team at ISTE, don’t despair, you can join one of our regular webinars on a wide variety of topics. These include high level introductions to Meraki, product specific sessions, and customer testimonials. Bryan Independent School District joins us on Thursday to discuss how easy it is to deploy and manage Meraki APs, switches, and security appliances in support of 16,000 students. Sign up to attend here, or if you missed the live event, you can watch the recording here.
Do you have the Meraki #fullstack? If you do, why not share your story with us on Twitter @Meraki, we would love to hear from you.
Once again, the BETT show again proved to be a great kick-off to the year due to the large number of people attending and the shear size of the event. This year the design team took things to another level, with an elegant and clean stand that stood out from the crowd, nicely reflecting the Meraki products’ sleek appearance and management simplicity.
As we have come to expect from the largest education trade show in Europe, iPad management and MDM was a hot topic at BETT with many visitors to the stand wanting to know more about Meraki Systems Manager. With a wealth of new features added since our last visit to the home of BETT at the Excel centre, it was great to be able to offer even better and easier ways of addressing the needs of schools and educators. A primary example of this is the addition of Apple Device Enrollment Program (DEP) support and dynamic policy application. If you want to find out more then make sure you visit meraki.cisco.com/sm and try it for yourself for free.
One of the great things about BETT is meeting existing Meraki customers, especially those who we met the previous year as prospective customers and have since deployed. In particular it was fantastic to catch up with members of the team from York College. York College was an early adopter of Meraki technology, one of the first higher education customers in the UK. Listening to them about their experience over the last three years was a real pleasure. Hear for yourself in the video below.
You may have noticed that the video is a little dark in the interview with York College. Unfortunately, that afternoon there was a total power outage at the Excel center lasting over 10 minutes. For the exhibitors with racks of equipment, servers and appliances running their demonstrations, it was one of those nightmare scenarios. Once again this highlighted the benefits of cloud infrastructure with the Meraki devices coming back online within minutes of the power returning.
Away from the stand, we teamed up with long term UK partner Softcat in the Schools Learn Live Secondary theatre. Here Meraki Technical Evangelist Simon Tompson provided an overview of the unique Meraki dashboard, before handing over to Steve Nesbitt from The Beacon School and Lee Sands from the King Edward VI College. Steve and Lee provided detailed insight into their infrastructure by giving a live demonstration of their respective school’s production networks to a packed theater. Listen to Steve’s segment in the video below.
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